James L.

Ok, I am very much a novice here, and I have more “camera” than I have experience / Nikon 7200. I take casual pictures for fun, and like to have larger prints made when I have a favorite picture.

I would like to find a post processing tool that is easy to learn, and will do the basics that I want. That is, to crop pictures, adjust color, re-sizing, embed titles on selected pictures, adjust contrast. I doubt that I will ever get into layers and those more fancy things. I very specifically do NOT want a program to organize or take control over pictures. So, maybe once a month I would want to improve the appearance of an image, or change the size, or add a title.

I can confess that I do know enough to know the obvious benefits of producing raw images, which allows more control in PP. That is one thing that I love about the 7200… I have one card saving regular .jpg’s, and the other saves them in raw for that special image that comes along once in a while.

I do have Photoshop Elements. I will admit that I have not spent much time with it, but I can say that I don’t find it intuitive.

So, here is my question. I am thinking about getting Light Room . My specific question is how do Elements and Light Room compare, in terms of doing the tasks that I want, and in terms of ease of use / learning curve ? Am I better off to spend some more time with Elements, or am I better off to try Light Room ?

Your thoughts and experience will be greatly appreciated !!

James

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

"embed titles on selected pictures"

Lightroom won't do that.

"So, maybe once a month I would want to improve the appearance of an image"

Photoshop Elements won't do you much good if you use it that infrequently.

Good luck finding something that does amazing stuff while being so completely simple that it takes no effort to learn it.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

James, you'd sound like you want to get all the benefit of a post processing program, but you don't want to put any effort into learning one. There is no magic bullet. BTW, Lightroom does not take control of anything - it responds to everything you want it to do. Once you leanr it you'll realized that.

LR and PSE are not interchangeable. LR is a image database with 16 bit raw conversion, printing, publishing and gps metadata editing. PSE is a simple 8 bit editing program, with a "catalog" (loosely described), and a scaled down 8 bit raw converter. It does layers, masking and other things that are useful, especially when you learn it.

So I suggest that the holy grail is not to be found in post processing software. So I suggest you resign yourself to learning something. LR is not a finishing program, but it does raw editing very well. You still need to finish the images in a bit map editor. PSE is pretty limited, and I generally don't recommend it, but many seem to be comfortable using it. The learning curve for full Photoshop is only slightly longer than PSE, and the benefits are far greater.

I understand if you can't see yourself down the road doing something more involved than simple image processing, but my experience has been that most of my students get the "bug" and enjoy exploring ways to improve their images.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

James,

There are multiple post processing tools for your use: all of them take time and effort to learn. All of them will do what you want for the most part, although I am not sure what you are referring to when you say "embed titles on selected pictures." If you do not want to take any time or effort to learn these programs just shoot in JPEG and use what you get straight from the camera.

If you have Elements learning it might be the best first step. Once you learn one processing program many of them are similar after that, many use the same commands. No program will "organize or take control over pictures" as software programs do not think, they just act on predetermined commands that are managed by the user.

Elements and Lightroom have similarities and differences. Elements is strictly a post processing program and will not assist you in managing your many images, although you can use Bridge to do this. Lightroom is a post processing program and will assist you in managing your many images. Elements will do some thing things that Lightroom cannot do or does not do well. There are other programs that will both manage and process your images, too.

I use Lightroom, Photoshop, and around 10 or so other software programs. Lightroom is the program that manages all of my thousands of images and does 95% of the processing. It's my "central office," so to speak. I use the other programs for more specific purposes. You must, however, for any program you choose put in the time and effort needed to learn the program or you will never get the most out of the program.

Staying with the JPEG format is a good choice for people who either cannot or do not want to learn software programs.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

Hi,

Curious what you mean when you say this, "LR is not a finishing program, but it does raw editing very well. You still need to finish the images in a bit map editor."

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

One of the key differences (at least to me) between PS Elements and Lightroom/Photoshop is that PSE is 8 bits and LR/PS is 16 bits.

sodapop Loc: Bel Air, MD

I have yet to find any decent pp program intuitive. They all require a fair amount of study and instruction. There are many many free instruction tutorials available for Lightroom and Elements

FotoPhreak Loc: Whittier, CA

From you post, I get the distinct impression that you do not take a ton of pictures. At one time I used Elements but have migrated to LR and I really like it. However, one feature that I really liked with Elements and sometimes miss in using LR is that Elements had several auto-fix up modes so that you could click a single button and it would apply a number of fix-ups like exposure, contrast, sharpening, etc to you pictures and really did a pretty good job of transforming your picture into a vibrant photograph. On the other hand LR has a significant learning curve. For you, I suspect you would be better off with Elements unless you have visions of upping your game to produce stellar, as opposed to just good, prints.

Reinaldokool Loc: San Rafael, CA

Consider Affinity Photo. It has more capability than either LR or PSE. It is comparable to PS but costs less+you own it. The User Interface works somewhat like PS, but smoother and some of the tools are better.

Fotomacher Loc: Toronto

I shoot Raw almost exclusively. My processing is dome with LR (although i know a few people who use ACR) and the editing (removing objects, blemishes, changing backgrounds, etc) is dome with PSE. The two programs are complementary. They are used for different purposes.

SusanFromVermont Loc: Southwest corner of Vermont

Bob Boner

I second what Gene51 said. Renting PS and LR from Adobe is cheaper than buying updates used to be. With a few books you can teach yourself to use it. Once you do, you will not outgrow your processing possibilities.

SusanFromVermont Loc: Southwest corner of Vermont

I started out with PSE and never got comfortable with it. Moved to LR and made the effort to learn it, got comfortable with it. For me, LR is more intuitive to use, because the tools are laid out in a logical order, enough of them are used via "sliders" that give you an immediate view of what they do so you can decide if that is one you want to use.

If you shoot RAW, editing is pretty much required to some extent. You can always shoot .JPG and try to get it right in the camera. However, consider the fact that many who start out with .JPG regret it later. [Others stay with it and are happy.] For me it was a regret, because as I learned more about how to edit, I found I wanted to go back and improve what I had done initially. RAW has more information to work with, making it easier to made multiple edits without losing image quality - unless of course your edit isn't any good...... But you can always go back to the original and try again!

If you get the LR subscription, you will get PS as well. Then you will have the option to use some or all of PS's capabilities as you progress. I had used LR for quite a while when I decided I wanted to learn to use layers. That is when I got the Adobe CC subscription. I also got the free trial first, so I could familiarize myself with what was new in LR, and also so I could explore PS to determine whether I could learn to use it. [My experience with PSE made me unsure of how I would "get along" with PS.] I did decide I could handle PS, and that my approach would be to concentrate on layers first, and later on tackle some of the other functions. Glad I did!

Another thing about LR is the cataloging system. You can set it up using whatever arrangement you want - by subject, by date, etc. - and can also have folders within folders for subtopics. The main thing you need to remember is that once the LR Catalog is set up, you should ONLY move images around from within LR. Your actual images are not in LR, they live in their own folder on your hard drive. But LR needs to know where to find them, and moving images, creating folders, etc. outside of LR will make it so LR does not know where they are!

mikex

Well said !👍👍👍

papakatz45 Loc: South Florida-West Palm Beach

You are incorrect in saying Elements "will not assist you in managing your many images". I have over 55,000 images which I "manage" and organize with Elements. It does a very good job. Not as powerfully as Lightroom but I venture to say it will meet the needs of most of us. Additionally Elements will process RAW and has a very good editor which, again, will meet the needs of most of us. This is not to say Lightroom is not a good program, but that Elements is a good program also.